


Happy New Year (war is over if you want it)

by Beth Winter (BethWinter)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everybody Lives, F/M, M/M, Multi, PTSD, Polyamory, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 06:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1678334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethWinter/pseuds/Beth%20Winter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're all alive to welcome the new year 1946, and they're all picking up the pieces. Or: the one time Peggy had to do something drastic to make Bucky listen.</p>
<p>(AU: everybody lives)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy New Year (war is over if you want it)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Steve Rogers Appreciation Society](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1590287) by [Beth Winter (BethWinter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethWinter/pseuds/Beth%20Winter). 



> AU sequel to my story [The Steve Rogers Appreciation Society](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1590287), building on the Peggy-Bucky dynamic established there. Title courtesy of John Lennon.
> 
> Happy birthday, Fyre!

14 March, 1945

A single shot misses.

It blows a hole in the wall of the carriage right next to Bucky. He hears Steve's yell and it gives him the courage to throw the shield, a lot easier than it should be, the HYDRA soldier's gun exploding in his hand.

 

16 March, 1945

A single shot hits home.

It's an impossible shot, from a moving car into the open cargo port of a moving airplane, but Bucky takes it and it hits something vital on the blueprints Steve just about choked out of Zola. The plane skids, slides, and tumbles off the icy cliff, and for a moment they all hold breath before they see Steve rolling across the runway, away from the edge and towards safety.

Phillips barely brakes in time. Peggy throws herself into Steve's arms, and her knee almost catches Bucky in the shoulder just before the explosion sets the mountain on fire.

 

1 January, 1946. Ten minutes after midnight.

The explosions over London are fireworks.

The US Ambassador's New Year's party is as lavish as possible when even Harrods is having trouble keeping stock on the shelves. The Strategic Scientific Reserve is on the rise, Phillips talking to more and more people in different uniforms, and that means the US government is taking care to show how their own resources are the most fitting for whatever the SSR is evolving into. Since it means all of them can toast the New Year over grilled meat and cases of champagne, Peggy will not be the one to complain, even if the rented Mayfair manor is barely warmer than the square outside. The Americans are awed by the Georgian interiors, but she's absorbed her uncle's friends' complaints to the point where her only association with this kind of grandeur is "bloody expensive to heat and goodness knows what will happen when the old man kicks it and we'll have to pay estate duty on that pile".

She's lost Steve in the crowd ten minutes after midnight. She doesn't mind; his lips are still red from her lipstick, his tie is in a knot he'd never manage himself, and Howard is both at hand and sober enough to play interference between Steve and the more political of the brass, the ones who don't take well to people pointing out their hypocrisy.

She ducks into the hallway to fix her lipstick in a gilded mirror. She's aware of the shadow by the barred window, in a little alcove away from the light, and of his clear path to the door. She takes care to put herself in that path as she approaches.

Bucky gives her a sideways smile. "Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year," she agrees. "A year of peace."

He's holding to the bars like a drowning man, and his eyelids twitch with every firework. "Tell that to China. Hell, tell that to the Soviets."

"I'll settle for a year of peace in England. Even London."

"Here's to that." He takes up the champagne glass next to him and drains it. Peggy thinks it might be his first tonight, which surprises her.

She takes his wrist. His skin is cold and clammy, but his hand isn't shaking..

"I'm all right," Bucky says quietly. "I'm holding on."

"You're running. We haven't seen you since Christmas."

He smiles crookedly again. "You think I didn't know what Steve was planning?"

She turns their joined hands over and lifts them, so that he has no choice but to see her bare fingers. "I said no."

He straightens immediately. "Too soon? Told him, the stupid lug, it's different for a classy dame when everyone's expecting her to drop everything and - whatever it is-"

"Embroider," she prompts, and surprises herself by a smile. "My embroidery is atrocious."

"If you marry Steve, he can do your embroidery. He's aces at sewing. I mean, when you're ready. When you're the boss of whatever you want to be the boss of. Whatever you're calling this thing. Place."

"We're trying to come up with an acronym that will spell out SHIELD."

He breaks into a real, wide smile. "Steve's gonna love that."

"Are you?" she asks. "You've been avoiding Steve since Boxing Day, but you've avoided me for over a month."

He looks away. A stray late firework bangs across a nearby roof, and his pulse is a sprint under her fingers.

"Thought the war was over. Thought things- yeah, stupid, I know. War ain't over when I'm still jumping at every loud sound. Wouldn't be much use to your SHIELD like this." He lifts his glass, and her hand with it. "Couldn't figure out a way to tell you without a little booze, and thought if I started drinking, I'd end up saying something I didn't mean to."

"You're a good man, Sergeant Barnes." She gets his attention with this formality. "But whether you take up my offer or not, I'm not asking as an employer."

She leaves the other part of that sentence unspoken. Neither of them is the sentimental kind.

He still has one hand wrapped around the bars of the window, and it supports his weight as he leans forward. He kisses her cheek before whispering in her ear.

"Not all right. Sometimes - the way I can't sleep - wasn't ever a smart guy but right now I'd give everything just to stop thinking for a moment. Maybe-"

She turns her head and stops him with a kiss. She has one hand free to cradle his jaw, and he follows her direction like well broken in horse.

They explore each other slowly, content to enjoy each other's warmth, the rhythm of their heartbeats. He tastes of champagne and salt that she recognises as choked-back tears.

He lets go of the window to slide an arm around her waist. When their kisses trail off, he moves his hand up, stroking her back as she pillows her head on his shoulder. She allows him the privacy of the darkness around them and looks only at the mirror on the other side of the hallway.

"Happy new year," he murmurs. His snicker is more of a hiccup. "War is over. That's the joke. War's never over."

"We're going to try our best."

He's smiling as he takes half a step away. "I know who I'd bet on. Also, we're never telling Steve, right? He'd, I don't know what he'd do."

"He would probably ask us to pose for him together," Peggy decides.

The expression of exaggerated horror on Bucky's face is very welcome. "You too? My legs always cramped up twenty minutes in."

"Mine went to sleep. But he's very good at massaging my legs back to life."

He almost nods, and she has to hide a smile as he tries to come up with a way to cover it.

The racket from the party swells for a moment as the door opens and closes. She doesn't have to turn her head to know who just slipped into the hallway, she can see it in the light in Bucky's eyes.

Steve's shadow falls over them.

"Bucky?" he asks. "Why are you wearing Peggy's lipstick?"

She's almost afraid what excuse Bucky will come up with, so she turns her head first. She's good at charging in, a trait she shares with Steve. "I would think the reason is obvious. It's the new year, after all. Do you mind?"

He's towering over them, arms braced on both sides of the alcove, shielding them from the world. "I guess I'm still not very clear on-"

"For heaven's sake," Peggy says, and pushes Bucky back against the window before kissing him again.

It's brief and heated, and he makes his first sound when she runs her teeth over his lower lip. Her own lipstick tastes sweet, a little buttery. His hands close around her upper arms, shifting in curious exploration.

When Bucky makes the second sound, a barely-there groan, she kisses the hollow of his throat and knows he's just locked eyes with Steve.

"You told her?" Bucky asks, and he doesn't take his hands off her.

"Peggy already knew." Steve sounds earnest and a little breathless, and very Steve.

"You're not good at hiding things," she tells Bucky. Her fingers are tangled in the knot of his tie, nowhere as elaborate as Steve's. She could do much better. "You're better at subterfuge than Steve, but it's not a high standard."

"Bullshit," he says, and pulls her in, his leg slipping between the folds of her skirt until she's almost straddling his thigh. "You only knew because we kept talking about how hot Steve is."

There's a squeak from behind her that's definitely not a Captain America sound, and she throws Steve a steely glance across her shoulder. "I hope you didn't think we were only discussing guns."

"But we didn't do this," Bucky says. "You sure-?"

In answer, Steve reaches out. He cups the back of Peggy's head, and she leans into his touch for a moment before pressing forward against Bucky. She can't tell where Steve's other hand is, but the boys' breathing is speeding up in harmony, and she wants to do this in the kind of privacy that would allow less clothing to be involved.

Bucky laughs a little, his throat shifting under her mouth. "Just told Peggy I wanted to stop thinking for a while. Now I feel like my brain's gone. How'd I end up in places like this?"

"Usually by following me." Steve's grinning like it's Christmas and like Peggy hadn't broken his heart.

Then everyone who left to set off fireworks from the square outside is trundling in, and they slip away from the little alcove in the rush. Peggy squeezes Bucky's hand one last time before letting go, and Bucky's answering grip means the same thing as the slap he metes out to Steve's shoulder.

 

1 January, 1946. Half nine in the morning.

Peggy goes to open the door in her housecoat and slippers because she already has a good idea who's invadiing her home at an unsociable hour on a holiday. Bucky looks just as bedraggled as she does, without the excuse of just getting out of bed. Judging by the shadows under his eyes, he hasn't made it to a bed this year at all.

He holds up a bag, and she knows better than to ask where he got the eggs in particular, still officially limited to one per person per week. She kisses his cheek instead, and draws him into the kitchen.

She knows what he's making only because Steve waxed lyrical at her about American pancakes over and over again, one of the few food items he misses both from his childhood and the few years he and Bucky had between the Depression and the war. Bucky leaves the batter to stand and joins her at the kitchen table. He takes two sugars in his tea, and Peggy thinks he's spent far too much time around British soldiers.

"I didn't have that much luck with the not thinking," he admits. "This - it's all tangled. Wasn't supposed to be complicated, after the war."

"I think that's only true in books. " Peggy stirs her tea. "Five of my uncles fought in the Great War. Two died in the trenches. One shot himself in the head in 1923. We count them all as war casualties."

Bucky nudges her foot under the table. "How many uncles do you have?"

"I had eight," she says promptly. "Most of them were second and third cousins, but Steve flusters when I use terms like that."

"Too posh," Bucky agrees.

Peggy taught him that word and promised to take retribution each time he used it towards her. This time she pinches the back of his hand, and he makes the requisite pained sound.

"It's not only books," he says. "Songs, and movies, and music hall plays. War is hell, but it's supposed to be all roses when it's over. Johnny comes marching home, get ready for the Jubilee..."

"That's not the twentieth century war. And we're not that kind of soldiers."

He reaches for her hand and stops half an inch away. "Could be worse. Thought you and Steve would get hitched and stay here and I'd go back to Brooklyn on my lonesome. I mean, assuming the offer's still standing?"

She turns her hand palm up and waits until he puts his hand over hers.

"What'd I do?" he asks quietly. "What'd I do to end up like this?"

"Got born stupid," Steve says from the doorway. "Morning, Peggy. Do we have breakfast?"

"Pancakes, apparently." She gives the bowl of batter a doubtful look. "Pancakes in potentia. There's tea in the pot."

Steve pours himself a cup. There are only two chairs in the kitchen, so he leans against the wall behind Bucky, fitting himself into the corner like he's still the size of a bantam chicken.

"Don't recall promising pancakes for everyone." Bucky leans back in chair. "Maybe they're just for me and the lady - ouch, Peggy!"

"You know the rules," she says calmly, tucking her legs back to the side, ankles crossed.

"Rules?" Steve asks. He moves one foot to arrest the tipping of Bucky's chair. It's that or suffer in the inevitable fall.

Bucky tips his head back. His hair brushes the leg of Steve's trousers. "Peggy's rules. Not supposed to call her lady, posh or princess. Dame's allowed, she likes it."

Steve gives her a quizzical look. "But you don't mind...?"

"You're allowed," she assures him. "Barnes needs discipline."

She takes a slow, charged breath as Steve trails his fingers across Bucky's neck. Bucky is looking up at him with an expression both of them would have to be blind to miss.

"I'll be good," Bucky says hoarsely. Steve's fingers look idle, but they must be putting some pressure on his throat.

"You heard the lady," Steve whispers.

Peggy wonders how much effort it takes for them to reveal this to her, a connection and experience that could still bring a two-year conviction in England and twenty in their home. Then she only watches as Steve leans down and Bucky turns in his chair.

"Been a while since we could start a morning like this," Steve says some minutes later.

"Brooklyn," Bucky agrees. He licks his lips, as if chasing Steve's taste. "Pancakes?"

"Pancakes."

 

2 January, 1946. Ten minutes after midnight.

There are no fireworks tonight, and Bucky's sleeping peacefully in her bed.

In their bed, Peggy amends, as Steve walks soundlessly down the stairs to join her in the kitchen. He slips his arms around her while they wait for the kettle to boil.

He rubs his cheek on her hair. "Are you..."

"I'm fine. You two took great care not to shock me with your homosexual antics. Which I haven't been shocked by since I was eight and walked on Aunt Eve and the gardener."

This gives him pause. "Have I met Aunt Eve?"

"He goes by Evelyn until he's comfortable with people."

Steve giggles, the vibration running pleasantly through her.

She wraps her hands around his wrists. "Are you-?"

"You're beautiful together." He whispers it like a prayer. "I knew you would be."

"He's tolerable," Peggy says, and gets a squeeze for her trouble. "When I get him to behave."

That draws another giggle, incongruous from someone this tall and broad. A memory of a different age.

"I think he liked that," Steve says. "And the way you tied that tie."

She blushes despite herself. "He wouldn't stay still otherwise."

"I liked the tie," he admits, and she doesn't have to look to know he's crimson.

The kettle whistles its triumph, followed closely by the sound of someone stumbling down the stairs.

"That's not fair," Bucky tells them. Then he stretches, arms on the doorframe, legs braced and not a stitch of clothing on his body. "That bed's damn cold without company."

"The night is damn cold," Peggy tells him as she pours. She's missing the warmth of Steve's arms already.

She knows Bucky noticed the shiver when he stalks forward, pinning her against the wall the moment she sets down the kettle. "We could think of a better way to warm up," he purrs.

Steve cracks up first, and a moment later they're all laughing. Peggy pokes at Bucky's ribs until he retreats behind Steve, squeaking in indignation.

"I should get you a dressing gown," she decides. She's rather proud of the one she found for Steve, gently used but first-rate fabric, blue and grey.

Bucky peers around Steve's shoulder. "Isn't that kinda-"

"Comfortable," she says sweetly.

"Dumbass," Steve adds, and that's apparently the secret Barnes-Rogers codeword for a tickle war that devolves into wrestling on the floor.

As long as they keep out of her way while she pours three cups of tea, Peggy can put up with them. They can talk of the rest later, the dressing gown and the booze and the files still spread on the sofa in the living room, in disarray from when Bucky crawled between her legs and put his mouth to better use than poking holes in SHIELD's organisational structure.

Happy new year, she tells herself.


End file.
